The Plumb-pudding in danger
More actions
The Plumb-pudding in danger is an 1805 hand-colored etching by British caricaturist James Gillray, frequently cited as the most famous political cartoon in British history.
Description
The print shows William Pitt the Younger, the British prime minister, and Napoleon Bonaparte seated at a table, each carving off a slice of a globe-shaped Christmas pudding that stands in for the world: Pitt slices off the ocean and the Americas, while Napoleon claims continental Europe. The image reduces the geopolitics of the Napoleonic Wars to a single, instantly readable visual joke about two powerful men carving up the world between them for their own appetites.
Reception and legacy
Published by Gillray in December 1805, the print was an immediate popular success and has remained one of the most frequently reproduced and referenced political cartoons ever made; it was voted the single most famous British political cartoon in a 2000 poll of political cartoonists and historians. Its central image—two leaders dividing a globe like a dish at the dinner table—has been directly reused and parodied by countless later political cartoonists depicting other rival powers carving up territory or influence.